My Friend Prospero

the Epistle side of the altar, at an elevation of perhaps a yard from the pavement, there is a recess in the wall, enclosed by a marble balustrade, and hung with faded red curtains, w

b of God!) Heretofore, during John's residence at the presbytery, the tribune had stood vacant. To-day it was occupied by Maria Dolores and Frau

dirty, unsavoury villagers. When Mass was over, he returned to the

sly incline

ing, in a voice that seemed to

, in honest truth, it's rather a bad morning, isn't it?" he submitted, posing his head at an an

tively round. "One can still be out of doors, and yet not get the wetting one

t, in a state of suspended animation. "T

she were thinking

e slightest bepuzzled drawing together of her eyebrows,

ooked

t? No. Why

those extraordinarily ragged and dirty people," she explained. "It's a p

and popular the Church is in Italy,-as it ought to be everywhere. It is here essentially the Church of the people, the Church of the poor. It is the one place where the poorest man, in all his rags, and with the soil of his work upon him, feels perfectly at ease, perfectly at home, perf

t, (stained as by the hand of an artist, in wavy veins of yellow or pale-green, with here and there little rosettes of scar

owever, I must admit that until rather recently I had exactly your feeling. But I got a lesson." He b

he lesson?"

s I was sick with disgust and sore with resentment. Why should he come and rub his coat-sleeve against mine, when there was room in plenty for him elsewhere? The next time I went to church, I chose a different corner, as remote as might be from my former one; but again, no sooner was I well installed, than, lo and behold, the same unspeakable old man limped up and knelt with me, cheek by jowl. And so, if you can believe it, the next time, and so the next. It didn't matter where I placed myself, there he was sure to place himself too. You will suppose that, apart from my annoyance, I was vas

Dolores, with inte

pen, according to my injunction, she had failed to see any one kneeling beside me-that, on the contrary, she had seen me," he

was white. She frown

aimed, in a half

time," said John. "Then I gave her a minute description of the old

uestioned Maria Dolor

age of my own soul, as it appeared, corrupted and aged and deformed by the sins of a lifetime, to God and to the Saints. And she added that he was sent to punish me for my pride in thinking myself differe

rs, fall precipitously away, down the steep face of a natural cliff. They stopped here, and stood looking off. The rain had held up, though the valley was still misty with its vapours

there was the glint of laughter. "In view of it, however, I suppose there will be no

oned John. "

vite you in her name hereafter to hear Mass from there with us. But I suppose, in view of your 'lesson,' that is an invitation

t her, his bl

ropped, while I think a blush faintly swept her cheeks. "And first of all," he added, "pray express to Frau Brandt my grateful thanks for it-and let me thank you also f

into the garden, and so on to the pavilion beyond the clock. She probably knew her danger; but she was human, but she was a woman. Besides, she had reached the porte-coc

light in her, desire for her; at the same time a kind of angry hopelessness darke

he exclaimed, irrita

cial reason?" asked she,

has a connection with i

"I remember you

. "Then I might pluck up courage to

re below," said she. "I ha

he, "when you wish to a

id she. "Difference o

mocratic fellow, handsomely. "I shouldn't

d-at her secret ref

share with me an income of sixpence a week. Especially as I have grounds for believing that she's in

s, which she held perseveringly averted, were soft with sym

o special talent, to fancy he can turn to and earn money. I might, if I made supernatural exertions, and if Fortune went out of her way to favour me, a

read, are often as short as they are sharp. Let us trust you'll soon

blue of his eyes, the gold of his hair and bear

said, "that you don't deserve to he

obliterated fresco on

mple truth, though I am thirty years old, is that I have never before felt so much as a heart-flutter for any woman. And, since

t painting. Her fingers were play

ent order-as distinct from them as ... What shall I say? Oh, as unlike them as starfire is unlike dull clay. Starfire-starfire-the wonderful, high, white-burning starfire of her spirit, that's the thing that strikes you

nt person you depict!" laughed Maria

eauty day by day. It's a literal fact-every fresh time I see her, she is perceptibly more lovely than the last, more love-compelling in her

ht infer she was a commodity, to be bought and sold. You begin at the wrong end. What go

n answered, glooming. "For, without a decent inc

e you conscientiously avoid her society, or, when you

ciety, (which I am far from doing), it would be not for her sake, but for my own. For, though her society is to me a kind of anticipation of the joys of Heaven, yet when I leave it and find myself alone, the reactio

tep in her direction. She retreated un

-which doubtless some day you will find of value. Why not, instead of gardener

again. Ah, well, if you must have your laugh, have it, and

rchway, while John's face fell, "I will bid you good-bye. I am to

le intensively to rejoin, in spite of his

ack, now, suddenly, for the first time since

was merry and ironic, but there was something

-" He held his breath for a second, the flame in his eyes enveloping her; then, with an abrupt c

, and said,

unnel-like passage, "I suppose you know you are leaving me to

may bring forth?" called sh

busy, trying to determine whether that was a